


A New Line of Research

by thewightknight



Category: Captain America (Movies), DC Movies - Fandom, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Supersoldier Serum, hydra research, post-Wonder Woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewightknight/pseuds/thewightknight
Summary: Dr. Maru receives an intriguing offer.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A slight expansion of [this thought](https://thewightknight.tumblr.com/post/161905667388/certain-people-know-that-one-woman-helped-bring). Set in the time period before The First Avenger, after Erskine fled to the US.
> 
> Also, check out [this amazing post translating Dr. Maru's notebook](https://thewightknight.tumblr.com/post/162055095013/dr-marus-notes-translated)!

"I told the others. I've upheld my end of the agreement. I have conducted no research since ..."

"Pity that. Your work was brilliant."

Isabel eyed the newcomer warily. He didn't look like the previous men who squared off against her across the rickety table in this dank cement bunker. Instead of a crisp uniform and a polished leather briefcase, he wore a rumpled suit and carried a battered canvas bag. Wispy hair barely covered his scalp and his eyes swam like fish in a bowl behind his spectacles. He took a seat at the table in the room across from her, setting the bag on the floor by his feet.

"I'm sorry if there has been any confusion. You were not brought here under any suspicion. There have been many changes in the last few months, and some of those changes will be to your benefit. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Armin Zola, and I work with HYDRA-Abteilung."

"I have never heard of this division."

Zola smiled, an expression that didn't reach his eyes. "If you had, it would have indicated a serious breach in security. We have many branches of interest, but our leader's main focus is currently the, how should we say it? The ... improvement of man." Reaching for the inside pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a blue glass capsule, laying it on the table in front of him. Isabel gasped in recognition, making an abortive movement towards it before pulling her hands back.

"Although it was for your work in gas warfare that you were most renowned, it is this compound that has piqued our interest. We have had a recent ... setback in our work and various lines of inquiry have led us to you."

"It is useless. After all this time I could not reproduce my work without my notes." The words were bitter, as was the taste in the back of her throat. So much lost.

"Ah, your notes." Reaching down, he rummaged around in his satchel. "Would that be these?" This time Isabel couldn't restrain herself,snatching the green journal from his hands. She rifled through the pages, muttering to herself, and Zola smiled.

"Dr. Maru, I would officially like to extend an offer to you. Full pardon and restoration of rights and research privileges, and a lead position in our supersoldier program. Your genius has lain fallow for far too long. We stand at the dawn of a new age, and must rise to meet it."

Isobel nodded in agreement, barely listening anymore as her fingers danced across her old formulas. It had been so long. Too long. The work must go on.


	2. Chapter 2

The screams faded eventually. They always did. Shaking her head, Isabel made a notation in her book.

“Sometimes I wonder ….”

She started at the voice. Schmidt had snuck up on her again, entering sometime during the trial. He hadn’t bothered covering himself today. The harsh planes of his face couldn’t help but draw her eyes. She hadn’t gone uncovered since her trial, when she’d been forced to bare the ruin of her face to the world against her will, but he bore his deformity like a badge of honor.

“Is the fault in our research, or is it in the subjects?”

“What do you mean?”

“We seek to transform mankind, Doctor. Perhaps we have begun with imperfect materials.”

“Dr. Zola has selected our test subjects personally from the captured soldiers. We have developed a list of criteria.”

“But you test only one subject at a time, yes?”

“Yes, that is the protocol to which we are expected to adhere.” She kept all traces of bitterness from her voice.  Ludendorff had never held her to such restrictions.

“I have good news for you then, doctor. The protocols have been lifted.”

“Then I can travel to the front? Direct the project firsthand?”

Schmidt frowned, shaking his head. “No, you must remain here.”

Emboldened and frustrated, she pushed. “If I didn’t have to work through Arnim, the work would progress….”

“Dr. Zola’s mechanical expertise lends itself to hands on application of his projects, but truth be told, although he is a genius, his genius is not irreplaceable. You, however, my dear doctor? You are too valuable to risk, so close to the front.”

The protests that still hovered at her lips as a hand raised, fingers caressing the edges of her prosthetic.

“The weapons that Dr. Zola creates are but the tools that your creations will wield. It is your work that will assure our victory.” With a nod of his heels and a click of his heels he left her, gaping in shock at his retreating back. It took her several minutes to gather herself after Schmidt’s department, but then her pen flew.

_23/10/1943 - Dr. Maru, as per your instructions, ten subjects were selected in accordance with the range of your specifications. Their vital statistics and evaluations are attached. Three did not survive the initial application of serum and an additional two subjects died while under observation within four hours of administration of the dose._

_24/10/1944 – Two more subjects perished overnight. One swallowed his tongue during an epileptic fit. Three orderlies were incapacitated while attempting to administer assistance. Two are expected to recover. Autopsy on both subjects revealed massive internal organ failure._

_25/10/1943 – The eighth subject appeared to be in the throes of a transformation such as was undergone by Herr Schmidt, but was, in actuality, disintegrating. Two subjects remain. One is comatose and shows no signs of brain activity. The other appears to have undergone no visible changes. We continue to monitor both their conditions._

_27/10/1943. Subject number nine passed away without ever regaining consciousness. Autopsy was inconclusive. Subject number 10 remains in stable condition, but is uncooperative. Still no indication of any effects that could be attributed to administration of serum._

Zola’s updates only made Isobel itch all the more to be on site, supervising this test run. Ten files lay spread before her on the desk. Red x’s had been drawn over the photographs of nine of the subjects. She drew the tenth file closer to her, studying the black and white photo.

 _James Buchanan Barnes. American. 107 th Infantry Regiment, _Zola’s almost illegible scrawl proclaimed.

“It seems you may be our first success, Mr. Barnes. I cannot wait to find what secrets you hold.”

The next morning, she hesitated, fingers hovering over her prosthetics where they lay in their padded case. Staring at herself in the mirror, she turned her head, flexing her jaw and watching the skin pull across her cheek. Schmidt bared his face to the world, not ashamed of what he had done to himself in the process of furthering their great work. From here on out she would do the same. No more hiding what she was. Squaring her shoulders, she swept the pieces from her dressing table.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the 1970s, SHIELD makes a startling discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What started out as a one shot kept growing. This is it now, though, for real.

"Director Carter, this way. Watch your step."

The bodies had been cleared, but not the rubble. She stepped around jagged pieces of concrete and ignored the stains on the floor. Several bookshelves had been shoved aside, revealing reinforced steel bunker doors. The lights flickered intermittently, washing everything in a sickly yellow glow and throwing twisted shadows in their path.

"Any idea what this is for?" Banks after banks of server stacks filled the room but she couldn't see any workstations. 

"It all seems to be for one purpose, ma'am." The agent pointed to the one lone monitor, sitting on a desk along the far wall. "We've cleared the area. It's safe to approach."

"And what purpose would that be?"

The monitor flickered to life, and a red light began to blink on the camera beside it as it swiveled to face them. "Why, to my preservation, Director."

A woman's face filled the screen. Scar tissue disfigured one cheek and jaw.  Whoever this woman was, she presented this side of her face to whatever was recording her, flaunting her deformity.

"These computers preserve my consciousness. My body was weak, but my spirit? Indomitable."

"And you might be?"

"Ah, so I have been forgotten. Disappointing, but not unexpected. I have kept to the shadows for so long."

"Then I'm sure you'll be happy to step into the light once more?" 

The face on the monitor laughed.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? For me to spill all of my secrets. Or would you? No, you do not trust things that come too easily. Come back when you know my name, Director."

The screen flickered, then went black.

"Cheeky!"

It took two weeks. All the clerks scrambled over themselves avoiding her when she stopped in for an update. Finally she stopped going down there. When the room cleared because people hid from her, it delayed her getting an answer.

When the dusty folder finally arrived, Peggy read it, then reread it, her scowl deepening with each page turned. 

This time when she entered the monitor remained dark until she addressed it.

"Dr. Maru."

The poisonous green image flickered back to life. The color wasn't a conscious choice, but it couldn't have been more appropriate, now that she knew the woman behind the face.

"Director. Welcome back."

"Care to answer a few questions today?"

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps?"

"Ask and you will see what i am willing to answer."

"You are Dr. Isabel Maru, is that correct?"

"I am."

"I've reviewed your records."

"And they've told you so much, I'm sure."

"It's what they don't tell me that interests me." The face on the screen tilted, a smile pulling at the tissues of her cheek. "Like what you were doing after you disappeared in nineteen forty three."

"But I was retired, Director. As per the conditions of my pardon after the first World War."

"And a retired research scientist ends up living in a computer bunker how, exactly?"

"Because of someone else's research."

"Fascinating. I'd love to hear more."

"I'm sure you would." 

Did she have the patience for a game of cat and mouse today? Not really, Peggy decided.

"If you have information to share, then do so. Otherwise, I'm leaving."

"So demanding!"

"Fine then." She'd almost made it to the door when Maru began to speak.

"Always so quick to give up. Abandoning your line of questioning as quickly as you did your search for your precious Captain America."

 _How dare you_ danced on the tip of her tongue but she bit back the words.

"I was recruited by Schmidt, you know, to continue the defector's work. We came so close."

She should leave now, she knew. Leave and never come back.

"The work continues even now. Or it did. With Howard Stark's death, my experiments have sadly come to a halt."

"You're saying Howard was working with you?"

"Oh, he didn't know it was me. He thought he'd rediscovered old research. In actuality I fed him tidbits from my work. The supersoldier program is not dead, Director. Rather like your captain."

"What?"

"My research indicates a high probability that the captain is still alive. Frozen in the ice somewhere. He might even have some awareness. Imagine what he must be feeling, so cold, so alone for so long. I know I can."

"I think I've heard enough."

"For now. I'll be waiting for your return, Director."

Pulling the bunker doors closed behind her, she let her shoulders sag. When she got back to her office, she issued a new directive. _Disconnect all power to the server bunker and magwipe the drives._ Some people, some knowledge, should stay buried. Signing it, she marked it urgent and sent for a runner.

While she waited, she pull the file from her top drawer, the one that never left her possession. Flipping open the cover, she let her fingers trail along the edges of the black and white photo clipped to the top page.

"I wanted to believe her, but I know she lied. You're gone," she said to the photo. At the knock at her door she closed the file, returning it to its place and closing the drawer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Isobel would know how well recipients of the serum react to being frozen!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to [come say hi on tumblr](https://thewightknight.tumblr.com)!


End file.
